Transportation Risk Control of Waste Disposal in the Healthcare System with Two-Echelon Waste Collection Network

Abstract

This paper investigates a vehicle routing problem arising in the waste collection of the healthcare system with the concern of transportation risk. Three types of facilities abstracted from the health system are investigated in this paper, namely, facilities with collection points, facilities without collection points, and small facilities. Two-echelon collection mode is applied in which the waste generated by small facilities is first collected by collection points, and then transferred to the recycling centre. To solve this problem, we propose a mixed-integer linear programming model considering time windows and vehicle capacity, and we use particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm for solving large-scale problems. Numerical experiments show the capability of the proposed algorithm. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to investigate the influence of facilities with collection points and the collection routes. This research can provide a decision support tool for the routing of waste collection in the healthcare system.

Vehicle Routing Optimization for Pandemic Containment: A Systematic Review on Applications and Solution Approaches

“…As a result, future research should focus more on environmental and human-centric issues in order to build a more sustainable waste transportation system. Eren (2021) [82] Gao (2021) [73] Govindan (2021) [78] Haolin (2021) [74] Tirkolaee (2021) [81] Zhao (2021) [77] Sum 3 3 0 6 0 1 3 1 1 3 2 1 3 2 5 2 0 0 0 C: cost; E: pollutant emission; T: response time; D: demand; R: transmission risk; S: customer satisfaction; a: time restriction on customers; b: time restriction on depot; c: time restriction on vehicle or route; d: multi-horizon; e: multi-depot; f: split delivery; g: multi-echelon; U: uncertain parameters; Ex: exact method; M: metaheuristic; H: heuristic; ML: machine learning; Hy: hybrid method.…”

“…In terms of model characteristics, the periodic VRP with time window was found to be frequently studied in the field of infectious waste transportation; often, the time window herein was specified as the priority of services for health clinics or hospitals with a different range of risks [74,81]. Given the dynamic nature of periodic planning, only two articles were discovered.…”

“…Regarding waste disposal, seven papers discussed the infectious waste (e.g., medical waste) collection activities during a pandemic scenario. These articles mainly explored various ways to mitigate the transmission risk presented by infectious medical waste, including the use of temporary facilities [74,77,78,81] and outsourcing [105].…”

“…Few papers considered health-oriented metrics to minimize the risk of infection during the pandemic. Similarly to Haolin et al [74], Eren and Rıfat [82] and Tirkolaee et al [81] studied the risk control of medical waste, while Jiang et al [70] and M. Zhang et al [75] focused on the risk of transmission between humans.…”

“…Tirkolaee et al [81] developed a decision support system (DSS) based on this method and the associated mathematical modeling to assure the harmless and effective disposal of pandemic-related medical waste. Along with implementing an effective waste disposal method, logistics providers also need to identify the least infectious transportation routes [74,78,82]. The risk can be quantified based on the population exposure alone the route.…”